Seniority System

Seniority System, term used in the United States Congress for a body of traditional practices for granting influential committee positions and other prerogatives. In a seniority system, such positions are granted to representatives and senators solely or partly on the basis of the relative length of their continuous service on committees or in their respective houses.

The most notable practice is the so-called seniority rule: the custom of appointing as chairperson—the most prestigious and influential position on a committee—the majority party member with the longest continuous tenure on that committee. Assigned first to the bottom of his or her party's list on a committee, a member moves upward as those above die, retire, resign from the committee, or are defeated for reelection. This rise toward seniority is protected by the tradition that, once appointed to a committee, members ordinarily may not be removed without their consent. No member may head more than one standing committee; if eligible for more than one chair, the member usually is allowed to choose among them. Such multiple eligibility occurs more frequently in the Senate because its committees, on average, are smaller that those in the House of Representatives, and also because many senators serve on three or four committees, whereas representatives rarely sit on more than two. When a party loses its majority in a chamber, its chairpersons are replaced by the opposing party's most senior members on each committee.

Very senior members of a committee tend to dominate the chairs of its subcommittees, especially in the House. Furthermore, during committee hearings and deliberations—in questioning witnesses, debating legislation, and offering amendments—the chair customarily recognizes members in order of their committee seniority. Senior committee members from both parties usually are appointed to conference committees—the ad hoc panels on which members of both chambers serve for the purpose of reconciling differences between bills on the same subject passed by their respective houses. Length of service is also taken into account in protocol matters and in filling committee vacancies, making commission appointments, and allotting office space.

Seniority practices in the appointment of committee chairs first emerged in the Senate about 1846, but were not firmly adhered to until the mid-1850s. In the House, seniority was only one of several factors taken into account, but it played an increasingly significant role in the election of chairpersons during the second half of the 19th century. When House Speaker Joseph G. Cannon reversed this trend in the early 20th century, the House, in 1910, stripped his office of the power to appoint committee chairs. Soon thereafter appointment by virtue of seniority became almost automatic.

Although seniority practices are customary, rather than formal written regulations, they were rarely violated until recent decades; such violations have been more frequent in the House than in the Senate. During the 1960s, several members of the House were stripped of their committee seniority for misbehavior or for publicly supporting a presidential candidate of another party. Growing discontent with the automatic application of the seniority rule led, in the House, to reform measures adopted by both parties in the 1970s. These measures made committee chairs and ranking minority positions subject to election by secret ballot in the party caucuses. Practically, selection according to seniority is still the norm, but caucus control has introduced a measure of flexibility into the system.